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The Greats on Leadership

By Jocelyn Davis

Authors:

Jocelyn Davis

The Greats on Leadership is an in-depth tour of the best leadership ideas of the past 25 centuries, drawing out the key leadership insights from classic authors, weaving them together with business examples, the best contemporary research, and tools to help put it all into practice.Among the 20 specific leadership topics included are:Leadership Traps (Shakespeare) Change (Machiavelli) Power (Sophocles) Dilemmas (Madison, Hamilton) Communication (Lincoln, Pericles) Personality Types (Jung) Motivation (Frankl) Judgment (Maupassant, Melville, Austen, Shaw) Character (Churchill, Plutarch, Shelley, Joyce)The Greats on Leadership shows there are no greater lessons to follow than the classics in the search for practical wisdom.

The Golden Thread

By Kassia St Clair

Authors:

Kassia St Clair

** A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK **'Fascinating . . . The history of the world through the eye of a needle . . . I recommend this book to anyone' THE SPECTATOR'A charming, absorbing and history that takes us on a journey from the silk roads to sportswear, from ruffs to spacesuits . . . I devoured this quietly feminist book' SUNDAY TIMES'Joyful and beautiful' NATURE'Will make you rethink your relationship with fabric' ELLE DECORATIONAll textiles begin with a twist. From colourful 30,000-year old threads found on the floor of a Georgian cave to what the linen wrappings of Tutankhamun's mummy actually meant; from the Silk Roads to the woollen sails that helped the Vikings reach America 700 years before Columbus; from the lace ruffs that infuriated the puritans to the Indian calicoes and chintzes that powered the Industrial Revolution, our continuing reinvention of cloth tells fascinating stories of human ingenuity. When we talk of lives hanging by a thread, being interwoven, or part of the social fabric, we are part of a tradition that stretches back many thousands of years. Fabric has allowed us to achieve extraordinary things and survive in unlikely places, and this book shows you how -- and why.With a cast that includes Chinese empresses, Richard the Lionheart and Bing Crosby, Kassia St Clair takes us on the run with escaped slaves, climbing the slopes of Everest and moonwalking with astronauts. Running like a bright line through history, The Golden Thread offers an unforgettable adventure through our past, present and future.

The Graveyard of the Hesperides

By Lindsey Davis

Authors:

Lindsey Davis

From renowned author Lindsey Davis, creator of the much-loved character, Marcus Didius Falco and his friends and family, comes the fourth novel in her all-new series set in ancient Rome.We first met Flavia Albia, Falco's feisty adopted daughter, in The Ides of April. Albia is a remarkable woman in what is very much a man's world: young, widowed and fiercely independent, she lives alone on the Aventine Hill in Rome and makes a good living as a hired investigator. An outsider in more ways than one, Albia has unique insight into life in ancient Rome, and she puts it to good use going places no man could go, and asking questions no man could ask.

The Gestapo

By Frank McDonough

Authors:

Frank McDonough

Name as a 2016 Book of the Year by the SpectatorA Daily Telegraph 'Book of the Week' (August 2015)Longlisted for 2016 PEN Hessell-Tiltman PrizeRanked in 100 Best Books of 2015 in the Daily TelegraphProfessor Frank McDonough is one of the leading scholars and most popular writers on the history of Nazi Germany. Frank McDonough's work has been described as, 'modern history writing at its very best...Ground-breaking, fascinating, occasionally deeply revisionist' by renowned historian Andrew Roberts. Drawing on a detailed examination of previously unpublished Gestapo case files this book relates the fascinating, vivid and disturbing accounts of a cross-section of ordinary and extraordinary people who opposed the Nazi regime. It also tells the equally disturbing stories of their friends, neighbours, colleagues and even relatives who were often drawn into the Gestapo's web of intrigue. The book reveals, too, the cold-blooded and efficient methods of the Gestapo officers. This book will also show that the Gestapo lacked the manpower and resources to spy on everyone as it was reliant on tip offs from the general public. Yet this did not mean the Gestapo was a weak or inefficient instrument of Nazi terror. On the contrary, it ruthlessly and efficiently targeted its officers against clearly defined political and racial 'enemies of the people'. The Gestapo will provide a chilling new doorway into the everyday life of the Third Reich and give powerful testimony from the victims of Nazi terror and poignant life stories of those who opposed Hitler's regime while challenging popular myths about the Gestapo.

A Good Place to Hide

By Peter Grose

Authors:

Peter Grose

During the occupation of France in WWII the villages around Le Chambon-sur-Lignon pulled off an astonishing and largely unknown feat. Risking everything, they underwent a long-running battle of nerves and daring to hide 5,000 men, women and children, 3,500 of them Jews, from the Nazis and their Vichy stooges. Despite the danger, a whole community rallied together, from the pacifist pastor who defied orders to the glamorous female agent with a wooden leg, from the 18-year-old master forger to the schoolgirl who ran suitcases stuffed with money for the Resistance.Told using first-hand testimonies of many of the survivors and face-to-face interviews conducted by the author, A Good Place to Hide is the thrilling story of ordinary people who thwarted the Nazis and sheltered strangers in desperate need.

Get Started in Writing Historical Fiction

By Emma Darwin

Authors:

Emma Darwin

Do you have a compelling vision for a story set in the past? Are you inspired by novelists such as Alan Furst and Philippa Gregory? Get Started in Writing Historical Fiction is designed for anyone who wants to write in this exciting and wide-ranging genre of fiction, whatever your favorite style and era. Designed to build your confidence and help fire up creativity, this book is an essential guide to mastering the practicalities of writing historical fiction, showing you where to start with research, developing your plots, and convincingly and imaginatively capturing the voices of the past. Using Snapshots designed to get you writing quickly, Key Ideas to help crystallize thought, and a wealth of supplementary materials, this indispensable guide will have you telling amazing and rich historical stories in no time. You'll learn to research and plan your story, practice developing characters and settings, perfect your characters' voices, and transport the reader to another era.ABOUT THE SERIESThe Teach Yourself Creative Writing series helps aspiring authors tell their stories. Covering a range of genres from science fiction and romantic novels to illustrated children's books and comedy, this series is packed with advice, exercises, and tips for unlocking creativity and improving your writing. And because we know how daunting the blank page can be, we set up the Just Write online community, at tyjustwrite.com, for budding authors and successful writers to connect and share.

Girl Runner

By Carrie Snyder

Authors:

Carrie Snyder

Aganetha Smart was a poor farm girl who could run like the wind, but this was rural Canada in the 1920s when girls didn't run, or dream of the Olympics and they certainly didn't win. Aganetha Smart was about to change all that. Girl Runner, Carrie Snyder's debut novel, is the story of Aganetha Smart, a former Olympic athlete who was famous in the 1920s, but now, at age 104, lives in a nursing home, alone and forgotten by history. For Aganetha, a competitive and ambitious woman, her life remains present and unfinished in her mind.When her quiet life is disturbed by the unexpected arrival of two young strangers, Aganetha begins to reflect on her childhood in rural Ontario and her struggles to make an independent life for herself in the city.Without revealing who they are, or what they may want from her, the visitors take Aganetha on an outing from the nursing home. As ready as ever for adventure, Aganetha's memories are stirred when the pair return her to the family farm where she was raised. The devastation of WWI and the Spanish flu epidemic, the optimism of the 1920s and the sacrifices of the 1930s play out in Aganetha's mind, as she wrestles with the confusion and displacement of the present.Part historical page-turner, part contemporary mystery, Girl Runner is an engaging and endearing story about family, ambition, athletics and the dedicated pursuit of one's passions. It is also, ultimately, about a woman who follows the singular, heart-breaking and inspiring course of her life until the very end.

Golden Son

By Pierce Brown

Authors:

Pierce Brown

Ender's Game meets The Hunger Games in MORNING STAR , the second in an extraordinary trilogy from the New York Times bestselling author of RED RISING.'I'm still playing games. This is just the deadliest yet.' Darrow is a rebel forged by tragedy. For years he and his fellow Reds worked the mines, toiling to make the surface of Mars inhabitable. They were, they believed, mankind's last hope. Until Darrow discovered that it was all a lie, and that the Red were nothing more than unwitting slaves to an elitist ruling class, the Golds, who had been living on Mars in luxury for generations. In RED RISING, Darrow infiltrated Gold society, to fight in secret for a better future for his people. Now fully embedded amongst the Gold ruling class, Darrow continues his dangerous work to bring them down from within. It's a journey that will take him further than he's ever been before - but is Darrow truly willing to pay the price that rebellion demands?A life-or-death tale of vengeance with an unforgettable hero at its heart, Golden Son guarantees Pierce Brown's continuing status as one of fiction's most exciting new voices.

Granada

By Steven Nightingale

Authors:

Steven Nightingale

AN INDEPENDENT TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR A TELEGRAPH TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR Yearning for a change, Steven Nightingale took his family to live in the ancient Andalucian city of Granada. But as he journeyed through its hidden courtyards, scented gardens and sun-warmed plazas, Steven discovered that Granada's present cannot be separated from its past, and began an eight-year quest to discover more.Where once Christians, Muslims and Jews lived peacefully together and the arts and sciences flourished, Granada also witnessed brutality: places of worship razed to the ground, books burned, massacre and anarchy. In the 1600s the once-populous city was reduced to 6,000 who lived among rubble. In the next three centuries, the deterioration worsened, and the city became a refuge for anarchists; then during the Spanish Civil War, fascism took hold.Literary and sensual, Steven Nightingale produces a portrait of a now-thriving city and the joy he discovered there, revealing the resilience and kindness of its people, the resonance of its gardens and architecture and the cyclical nature of darkness and light in the history of Andalucia. At once personal and far-reaching, Granada is an epic journey through the soul of this most iconic of cities.

The Good Italian

By Stephen Burke

Authors:

Stephen Burke

Enzo Secchi, harbourmaster for Massawa, Eritrea's main port, is a loyal Italian colonial servant. He takes pride in running the docks, enjoys the occasional drink with his gregarious friend Salvatore, colonel of the local Italian garrison, and listens to Caruso in his spare time. But he is lonely and when Salvatore suggests he find an Eritrean housekeeper to cook, clean - and maybe share his bed - Enzo takes the plunge and advertises. Salvatore's own tastes run to the young and nubile, but Enzo surprises himself by choosing Aatifa, a sharp-tongued woman in her 30s with a complicated family life, who takes the job as a last resort. What neither of them had counted on was falling in love.But it is 1935, Fascism is on the rise, and Mussolini does not intend Eritrea to remain a backwater for long. Italian forces bent on invading Ethiopia begin arriving at the port. And with them come new laws - including one forbidding 'Relationships of a Conjugal Nature' with Eritrean women . . .Meanwhile, Salvatore finds himself at the head of the invasion force bound for Ethiopia. Gone are the glory days of garrison life; it is a bitter campaign, laying bare all the brutality of Italian colonial ambition. Its consequences for Salvatore, and for Enzo and Aatifa as they contrive to hide their relationship in plain sight, will change all three lives for ever.

Genocide Of One

By Kazuaki Takano

Authors:

Kazuaki Takano

He is a new kind of human He may mean the end for the rest of us... One bright morning in Washington D.C., the US President learns of a terrifying new threat to national security. Soon afterwards, American mercenary Jonathan Yeager is asked to lead a team into the Congo to eliminate a mysterious enemy - a job which will help him pay for treatment for his dying son.But when they reach Africa, the threat turns out to be a three-year-old child named Akili: the next step in human evolution. The soldiers are under orders to kill the boy before his full potential can be realised. Yet Akili's advanced knowledge might be the only hope Yeager has to save his son's life...With time running out to choose a side, Yeager must decide whether to follow his orders or to save a creature who may not be as harmless or innocent as he appears. Because Akili is already the smartest being on the planet, with the power to either save humanity - or destroy it.

The Greatest Escape

By Peter Grose

Authors:

Peter Grose

A story resonant in our days, the age of refugees, and a grand narrative in its own right, all told with absorbing skill. Peter Grose's tale of the astounding rescue village of Chambon is a tale of the practical deliverance of the hunted from the Nazis. A book to cherish and recommend!' --Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler's Ark THE GREATEST ESCAPE is a dramatic, yet virtually unknown, story of the Second World War. It remained secret for decades. It is the heroic tale of how the people in an area of rural France fooled the Nazis at the height of the German occupation, saving many thousands of lives. During World War II, the villagers around Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, on an isolated plateau in the upper reaches of the Loire, pulled off an astonishing feat. They saved the lives of 5,000 men, women and children (including 3,500 Jews) under the noses of the Nazi occupiers and the Vichy authorities. Their story features an extraordinary cast of characters. They include the unswerving pacifist pastor who was awarded the Medal of the Resistance with Rosette, the highest order of that proud French military decoration; the glamorous female SOE agent with a wooden leg (which she called 'Cuthbert'), who armed and organised the Resistance on the Plateau Vivarais-Lignon; the 18-year-old Latvian Jewish typewriter repairman who forged 5,000 sets of fake papers, and whose only ambition was to be a doctor; the 15-year-old schoolgirl whose parents tried to keep ehr out of harm's way in Le Chambon, and who risked her life running suitcases stuffed with money for the Resistance; and the 17-year-old Boy Scout who ran 20 missions escorting Jews to safety in Switzerland before joining the Resistance. THE GREATEST ESCAPE is told using first-hand testimonies from many of the survivors of this remarkable period. The author, Peter Grose, has drawn on eyewitness accounts and face-to-face interviews with many of the participants in France, which is now his home.

The Girl Behind the Curtain

By Stella Knightley

Authors:

Stella Knightley

Sarah Thomson and Marco Donato's complicated love affair continues - their passion is a deep one but both have been badly hurt before and are wary of exposing their vulnerabilities to the other. Meanwhile, Sarah begins to research a new subject . . . In Nineteen-Thirties Germany, Katherine Hazleton escapes her stuffy finishing school and runs away to Berlin in pursuit of an unsuitable man. Alone and penniless when her boyfriend deserts her, she is forced to become a hostess at a cabaret bar. There she reinvents herself as Kitty Katkin. Writing her own songs to accompany her risqué dance routines, Kitty is soon a sensation. She is in love with Berlin and her handsome musician lover, Otto. But Germany is about to change. Will Kitty and Sarah find the love they truly deserve?

Ghost Portrait

By Gregory Norminton

Authors:

Gregory Norminton

This intimate and compelling historical novel deftly interweaves three periods in the life of 17th-century painter Nathaniel Deller: in 1650, just after Charles I's execution, the young Deller joins a political group too radical even for the Roundheads; ten years later, on the night of Charles II's return from exile, Deller is accused by his former friend Thomas Digby of betraying their ideals; and in 1680, the increasingly blind painter commissions his former pupil William Stroud to finish the portrait of his late wife, knowing this could reignite the romance between Stroud and the daughter he tyrannises.Offering a vivid picture of England spanning the English Civil War and Restoration, GHOST PORTRAIT explores the conflict between public duty and private desire, idealism and ambition.

Goldeneye

By Malcolm Macdonald

Authors:

Malcolm Macdonald

FROM THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND where beautiful and passionate young Catherine Hamilton fled her father's wrath and her own uncontrollable desires.TO THE GREAT CANADIAN PLAINS where Catherine came during a raging epidemic of Spanish flu and took as her lover the town doctor she was aiding at the hospital, a married man old enough to be her father - then defied him by marrying his fiercely ambitious, hard-driving son. TO A WHOLE WORLD OF JOY AND SADNESS, TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY, WAR AND PEACE in this exciting novel by the bestselling creator of the Stevenson saga.For more information and a full bibliography visit www.malcolmacdonald.org

The Girl Behind the Fan

By Stella Knightley

Authors:

Stella Knightley

Hurt and confused by the sudden end of her strange love affair with Venetian millionaire Marco Donato, Sarah Thomson takes her bruised heart to Paris, where she tries to forget her yearning for Marco by throwing herself into a new project: a study of the life of notorious nineteenth-century courtesan, Augustine Levert, whose sensual charms parted many a man from his fortune.It is while she is in France that Sarah meets her ex-boyfriend Steven, who is hoping for a reconciliation. They rekindle their psychologically and sexually tortured relationship, but when her life begins to parallel Augustine's story, Sarah realises she will never erase Marco from her heart.Faced with a choice between safety and overwhelming passion, will both women make the right decision?

The Glory

By Herman Wouk

Authors:

Herman Wouk

Committed to fight in the air and on the ground against the monumental resources of the Soviet Union, The Glory charts Israel's successes over Egypt and the commando raid on Fatah HQ in Beirut, the first missile-to-sea fight in history, which helped tip the balance in the Yom Kippur War, and the famous counter-terrorism raid on Entebbe. Shifting between Jerusalem and Washington, Los Angeles and Paris, this is the story of a beleaguered country and the men and women who fought for Israeli Independence and triumphed in the Six-Day War but know their fragile nationhood still hangs by a thread as their own children go into battle.

The Ghosts of Athens (Death of Rome Saga Book Five)

By Richard Blake

Authors:

Richard Blake

The fifth book in the DEATH OF ROME SAGA is an exhilarating thriller and perfect for readers of Ben Kane and Simon Scarrow.612 AD. No longer the glorious cradle of all art and science, Athens is a ruined provincial city in one of the Byzantine Empire's less vital provinces. The Emperor has diverted Aelric's ship home from Egypt to send him there, but surely there is more important business in Constantinople. Isn't Aelric needed to save the Empire's finances? Is Aelric on a high level mission to save the Empire or has he been set up to fail? The only certainty is that Aelric finds himself in a derelict palace of dark and endless corridors that Martin, his cowardly secretary, assures him pulse will an ancient evil.

The Girl Behind the Mask

By Stella Knightley

Authors:

Stella Knightley

Leaving the heartache of sexual betrayal behind her in London, historian Sarah Thomson intends to make the most of her research trip to Venice. But she soon finds her attention consumed by mysterious millionaire Marco Donato. Despite their deepening relationship, however, the handsome playboy persists in playing a secretive game. What exactly is Marco hiding?The subject of Sarah's research is eighteenth-century Venetian Luciana Giordano. At a time when debauchery is the city's favourite pastime, virginal Luciana is kept out of trouble by a zealous chaperone - until she meets a man who promises to help her escape her restraints. But just what does the worldly stranger want to teach her in return?

The Glassblower of Murano

By Marina Fiorato

Authors:

Marina Fiorato

The bestselling first historical love story set in Venice, from Marina Fiorato. For fans of Philippa Gregory, Sarah Dunant and Alison Weir.1681. Glassblowing is the lifeblood of the Republic and Venetian mirrors are more precious than gold. Jealously guarded by the murderous Council of Ten, the glassblowers of Murano are virtually imprisoned on their island in the lagoon.But the greatest artist of their number, Corradino Manin, sells his methods and his soul to the Sun King, Louise XIV of France, to protect his secret daughter . . . Centuries later his descendant, Nora Manin, escapes an unhappy life in London, determined to apprentice as a glassblower in the city of her ancestors. Passionate and gifted, her famous family name places her in danger within the ancient foundries when timeles rivalries rise to the surface. As she finds new life and love in Venice, Nora's fate becomes inextricably linked with that of Corradino as the treacherous secrets of his life come to light.